An Entirely New Blue

On Wednesday I visited the Portland Art Museum’s newest exhibit: Hand and Wheel: Contemporary Japanese Clay. Among other things, it contains a small display of porcelain ware in the style called seihakuji. In this work I saw a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum I had not been aware of before. It was like suddenly seeing a flower through the eyes of an insect. There are no pictures of it here because I could not capture its qualities with my camera. It is blue that draws you in, and only lets you emerge when it finds you sufficiently enlightened.

There is other beautiful work in this exhibit, such as this stoneware:

In this piece by Kobayashi Hideo, “beads of white glaze appear like ropes of pearls:”

This is an amazing salt-glazed vase by Matsuo Jun:For me, the blue seihakuji served as a wonderful portal into the world of contemporary Japanese ceramic art. And while there is a lot to see in this lovely, small exhibit, I plan to visit again and again for the blue.

Hi Lynn!! There are a few just northwest of Mt Tabor, if I recall. I’m always envious of the wild, crazy, artsy folks in Southeast. We need more artsy whimsical fun in Southwest!! For example, there are TONS of poetry posts just northwest of Mt Tabor, if I recall… 🙂

Laura O. Foster, the amazing author of Portland Hill Walks and other books, writes about beautiful walkways and poetry posts. Here’s a site that lists all known poetry posts in Portland: http://poetrybox.info. As you can see, inner NE Portland has at least FIFTY, including over 30 within a mile of Grant Park. Meanwhile, all of SW only has TWO. We need to catch up in a huge way!!

In fact, I’m going to start leaving nice notes at people’s houses when I see cool things that they’ve done with their property–not too often, but just an occasional nice little note that let them know how very much their efforts are appreciated! Hopefully it will inspire them to keep the neighborhood funky, friendly, whimsical and artsy! 🙂

Plus, I want to encourage people living among our *beautiful* SW stairways to continue to welcome happy walkers like me! 🙂